


hold fast

by altilis



Series: careful, ren. [7]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Chastity Device, Cock Cages, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:29:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5659594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altilis/pseuds/altilis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Kylo Ren has told me about what you do with him,” Snoke says, and Hux opens his mouth to defend himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold fast

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, read those tags again. Super kudos to [sullacat](http://sullacat.tumblr.com/) and [kinderjedi](http://kinderjedi.tumblr.com/) for the proofread! ♥

With Starkiller gone--Hux’s pride and joy, the cradle of his career, his once-home--their base of operations moves once more back to Mitvolon, the sometimes-political, always-industrial economic powerhouse of the First Order. Everything on this planet is sickeningly familiar, from the mega-continent of prairies and mountains to the blocky square buildings of the Officer’s Academy in the shadow of the capital’s downtown skyscrapers. 

When Hux had left for his first assignment in the black, he thought he left the planet knowing absolutely everything about it, and yet here he is, in an underground cavern he never knew existed underneath the Academy, his head tilted up to a familiar hologram.

Kylo’s shoulder brushes against his as Snoke doles out their new responsibilities: a construction project for Hux deep in the Unknown Regions, a search-and-destroy mission disguised as colonization for Kylo and his knights.

“Kylo Ren, I will have a word, alone, with the General.”

They’re both dumbstruck by the statement, but Kylo recovers faster: he nods once, turns, and leaves the cavern without looking at Hux--even if Hux stares after him before regarding Snoke again. “Yes, Supreme Leader?”

“Kylo Ren has told me about what you do with him,” Snoke says, and Hux opens his mouth to defend himself, but Snoke continues. “I do not fault you for it, and neither should you fault him; there is nothing he can hide from me.” Hux knows that this is as much to ease his worry as it is to threaten him. If Kylo’s secrets are laid bare before the Supreme Leader, Hux is a simple open book, easily read and indexed.

So he waits, poised and polite, until something is asked of him, face passive even as Snoke leans forward in his great chair. “But this is not the time for him to indulge in simple romantics. The survival of the First Order rests on his ability to focus his power to one purpose. I have given him the tools; you will give him the structure.”

Hux swallows hard, not from fear but from power. His hands clench at his sides. “What would you like him to be, Supreme Leader?”

“Controlled unto himself.” Hux’s mind is blank, completely devoid of any immediate answer to this conundrum - Kylo lacks self-control independent of persistent external motivation, and that is a personal flaw Hux has already accepted. However, he will not disappoint.

Hux bows low at the waist. “Your orders will be fulfilled, Supreme Leader.” 

“Of course.” Snoke leans back in his seat again. “You have yet to disappoint me, Brendol. Remember how I have rewarded your success.”

The hologram fades, leaving Hux standing there in the still, cold air and dim light--first to shrug off the disgust at the use of his father’s name, then to lock down his own excitement, apprehension, confusion.

When he steps out of the cavern, Kylo is waiting in the hallway, leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest. He looks over at Hux, but doesn’t move, just watches as he steps close. “Well?” he asks, voice low and flat with boredom.

“Details for my projects. Let’s go.” He nods in the direction of the elevator and starts walking towards it, whether Kylo follows him or not. 

\--

Hux takes a walk through the city, and he feels eighteen-years-old again, quiet and unsure and one small cog in an endless machine, invisible in the midday sun. Downtown is always crowded, well-dressed bureaucrats jockeying for their square foot of the sidewalk as they meander between tall, gleaming buildings at the heart of First Order administration, SECURITY AFFAIRS in gold inlay on one front and INTELLIGENCE DIRECTORATE chiseled in black granite on another. His feet carry towards the cubic dwellings of the working class, the streets get smaller and no less crowded, but the conversation is louder, the restaurants spill into the sidewalk with the blaring broadcast of sports and propaganda, and the bustle swells into a constant, lively stream of greetings and profanity and businesses hawking their goods and services.

Kylo accompanies--somewhat. He cuts an imposing figure in the crowd, draped in black and masked, yet despite this Hux seems to be the only one to notice him. Kylo wanders off across the street, in front or behind, independent of Hux’s own pace and yet, somehow, still appearing at Hux’s side when he reaches a street corner.

“Are you searching for something?” Hux asks, his tone a little sharp.

Kylo’s mask turns towards him just barely. “Are you?”

“I have to know that our economy is thriving independent of the Republic blockades.” 

“There’s more.”

“Nostalgia,” Hux says, and that’s enough to make Kylo laugh behind his mask, and Hux takes the distraction for the opportunity it is, walking towards the open markets of the working class public squares. There’s a lot that could help him here - drugs and blasters and bindings made for animals and more; he hears and smells the squawking of the usual interplanetary menagerie for sale. 

Hux meanders between tall cages with blue-white birds and dark boxes that snarl and shake. From one stall, puffs of smoke curl up from glass barrels with winged reptiles, and they captivate his attention long enough that the vendor starts to talk to him.

“Ah, an officer! Hail!” The man says in heavily accented Basic, grinning. “Are you looking for a pet? These will do. Jolla lizards. Very good pet.”

“Let’s say I already have one,” he says, looking over to see Kylo several stalls down, who studies leather leads and is completely unaccosted, ignored by the world. “How would you suggest I control it? It’s destroying my home.”

The alien rubs his shoulder thoughtfully. “What you have it for? Breeding?”

“Entertainment.”

“Fixed?”

Hux snorts. “Not yet.”

“Well, that will be your problem!” The alien laughs, thumping on his belly. “They bite and growl until they find a mate. Even then, maybe still bite. Control the urge - maybe you save your house. Come, I sell you the medicine, it’ll shut down the need by tomorrow. Perfect neuter. Next tomorrow, your house will be safe.”

“I’ll think about it.” Hux digs into his coat, finds a credit chip, and tosses it at the vendor inside the stall. “Thank you for the advice.”

He meanders through the crowd again, side stepping questionable puddles and bags of grain to come up by Kylo’s side. His hand comes up, grabbing Kylo’s arm just above the elbow, firm enough to drag his attention from a display of colourful treats. “Come, we can get you a biscuit at headquarters.”

“Then you’re done handing out charity?” Kylo asks as pulls his arm away from Hux’s grip. 

Hux lets him, instead sliding his hand to rest at the small of Kylo’s back and starting to direct him through the crowd back towards downtown. “I pay for my goods and services, unlike you.”

“I can walk without your hand.”

“I know,” Hux says, not moving his hand.

\--

Six hours with administrators is six hours too much, being shifted from one meeting of governors to another, then to some assistant treasury minister who sits there and berates him about the cost of his projects, the cost of his ship, the cost of damages - while Kylo Ren stands by the door in the back and says nothing, takes no responsibility, even though he is the cause of all of these problems. Even though Hux can’t see his face, he’s certain Kylo is smug and entertained by watching Hux bear the weight of the bureaucracy.

By the end of the day, after making a handful of promises he has no choice but to keep, Hux steps out of the Colonial Management and Trade building into the clear, cool air of the evening, lightly scented by restaurants upwind, and thinks: he wants off this planet, again. He wants his ship. And yet, they have to spend at least one night here (because Kylo wanted to feel the city, he said, whatever that meant). 

“We’re going to the hotel,” he tells Kylo, who simply tips his head and doesn’t argue, so Hux takes the steps down into the busy, bustling street, and Kylo follows.

“There’s an opera showing tonight,” Kylo observes, pointing to a bright billboard wrapped around a street corner. 

Hux lets out a frustrated sigh, purposefully walking straight past it without a second glance. “No.” But Kylo lingers, catching Hux by the arm and stopping him dead. Hux scowls, turning to scold Kylo for slowing them down, but he pauses, seeing the colours flicker across Kylo’s black mask and the quiet, pensive way he studies the sign. The opera has always been a backdrop for catching allies and rivals alike all in one place, an elegant environment to drink too much wine and brandy, but Hux doesn’t have the energy (or the clothes) to tackle that den of rathtars. 

“Don’t tell me you want to go,” Hux says, moving in front of Kylo. He hears a faint, hollow laugh behind the mask, and Kylo looks at him before turning away, letting go of Hux’s arm.

“Not this one. I’ve already seen it.” Kylo starts back towards the towering, golden spire at the heart of town that is their hotel, and Hux falls into step beside him.

“Coruscant?” Hux guesses, wondering (not for the first time) how much privilege an Organa-Solo name would have given Kylo in his youth. “Box seats?”

“Actually, yes,” Kylo says, not shrinking from the implication like he has before, but now he reaches out, slides his arm around Hux’s shoulder and pulls him close enough to mutter in his ear: “Do you know what would be nice about box seats, here? No one would notice my hand on your cock. Not any of the professors, or your old classmates…”

Hux snorts and shoves Kylo away, keeping his gaze straight ahead as he swallows the heat stirring low in his stomach. “They would notice when I’m fucking you against the railing.”

 

Their hotel room has floor-to-ceiling windows, perfect for looking over the urban sprawl of dense concrete buildings creeping into the surrounding prairie and perfect for fucking Kylo against the backdrop of neon lights and watching his breath fog the glass. Hux noses at the back of Kylo’s neck, breathing in the warm spiciness of not-so-standard issue soap, and looking at the city he remembers a thousand different summer nights, of scrubby pines and sweet-smelling grass; of cheap whiskey and midnight markets; of looking to the stars wishing for something more than his father’s disgraced career and decades of pushing paper.

 

“Was what he said that sensitive? Why keep it from me?” Kylo asks later in the night, still draped back on the pile of pillows against the headboard, hair messed forward into his eyes, but somehow he can still follow Hux moving about the room. 

“Because it’s not relevant yet.” Hux takes a small box from his dresser, checks the item inside, and finally moves over to the bed, sitting beside Kylo’s nude body, his skin still glistening with sweat from earlier. Kylo tries to sit up, already so predictably curious, but Hux presses a hand against Kylo’s chest. “Stay down.” 

Kylo frowns, lying back again, but then the box leaps from Hux’s hand and Kylo catches it, opening the lid with approximately zero percent of the pomp and circumstance and apprehension that he had been planning on. Hux lurches forward to grab it again, but Kylo has long arms and he’s even stronger than before. They grapple, they wrestle, Kylo flips them twice and Hux flips them three times, and yet still manages to keep the box out of Hux’s grip. 

Then Kylo pushes Hux onto his back and the Force presses down on Hux’s arms like lead weights. He watches, giving Kylo an annoyed look, as Kylo shifts on his hips, getting comfortable, before he looks inside the box. He digs out one part of it, holding a silver ring with smooth open ends between his fingers as he examines it in the ambient citylight. “What is it?”

“A test.”

“Of what?”

“Your patience.”

Kylo stares down at him as he rolls the ring between his fingers. Perhaps he is already digging through Hux’s mind, trying to glean his intentions; Hux doesn’t know, but he doesn’t plan to wait. “Release me, Ren, or do you think this gift poses such a threat?”

Kylo scoffs. “Nothing you do will pose a threat to me,” he says, and the pressure relents from Hux’s arms. Hux reaches up to grab the ring from between Kylo’s fingers, and then his other hand rubs soothing circles against Kylo’s hip.

“I don’t intend to threaten you,” he says, seeing the conflict already in Kylo’s face as he tries to remain vigilant, but kind words and gentle touches sooth a great many beasts in the galaxy, Kylo included. “Rather, this should yield some improvement for you.”

One hand slides from Kylo’s hip to his cock, fingers curling around it and his balls, and the other slides the ring around both of them so it presses flush against his skin. Kylo shouts, dropping the box and grabbing at his wrists, but it’s too late - the ring beeps, the open ends fold open and join, and then titanium joints unfold to self-assemble into a dense, rigid net around his cock.

“What is this!” Kylo roars, so visibly panicking that Hux can’t help but laugh until Kylo backhands him across the face. “What are you trying to do to me, make me a eunuch? Get this off!”

And Hux, tasting blood inside his cheek, still laughs. He wraps his hand around Kylo’s caged cock to stop a second strike and revels in how he’s shaking with repressed rage. Hux rubs his other hand gently over Kylo’s thigh. “It’ll keep anything from touching you,” he explains, still using his ‘gentle yet superior’ voice, “including yourself. You’ll have to wait.”

Kylo scowls. “Until?”

“I release you.” Hux reaches over to the fallen box, grabbing the small, rectangular chip key by the thin chain and holding up. “With this.” Kylo snatches the key in his own grip, but Hux refuses to let go, and now they’re both tugging on the titanium, unrelenting. “Ren,” Hux says, his voice a little firmer, “what does it say when one of the strongest beings in the universe can’t endure some time being celibate?” 

“It wasn’t my choice.”

“It never is. Now let go.” 

Kylo sets his jaw for a moment, then his fingers loosen on the key, finally letting Hux pull it from his hand. He lifts his head just enough to loop the chain over his head and pull it down around his neck; he can see Kylo’s gaze follow it until it rests on his sternum. Kylo keeps looking it even as Hux’s hands slid up his thighs, his sides, focused enough that he might reach out and take it--until Hux drags back his attention with a sharp pinch to his nipples.

“Time for us to rest,” Hux declares. “You, especially.”

\--

Lunchtime--that is Hux’s expectation for how long Kylo will last, but Kylo perseveres - by avoiding Hux completely. All day.

Late at night, Hux sits in bed, reading, when Kylo lets himself into Hux’s cabin and storms into the bedroom, still dressed, save for the helmet he holds in one hand; he stops in the threshold. His fist slams against the doorframe. “General - ”

“On your knees, first,” Hux says, glancing up from his book. “You’re not getting anything if you just intend to burst in and threaten me.”

Kylo stomps over to his bedside, and only when he’s standing right up against the mattress does Hux look up to see Kylo’s dark gaze and how it fixates on Hux’s bare chest, the little piece of metal lying flat on his chest.

“On your knees,” Hux says again, and waits, quietly delighting in the anger, pride, _need_ flashing across Kylo’s face before he slowly shifts down to one knee, then the other.

“Good.” Hux sets his book aside and moves his legs over the side of the bed so that Kylo’s face is framed nicely between his knees. He reaches out a hand, sinking his fingers through that thick, dark hair to rub gently at his scalp. The soothing touch continues until Kylo’s eyes fall shut, and his head tips, ever so slightly, to press his cheek against the inside of Hux’s thigh. 

“I’m not going to take it off tonight,” Hux tells him, thumb brushing against Kylo’s temple. “But you’re welcome to suck my cock and stay the night.”

“And you’re not going to give me anything?” Kylo asks.

“No.”

Kylo snorts quietly. “That’s not much of an offer.”

“You’re also welcome to leave.”

“I think I will.” Kylo smoothly rises to his feet again, but this time his face is calm and passive: his work face. Kylo must see this as an appropriate challenge, along the same lines of coordinating their next planetary coup--but unlike then, his strategy here is obvious.

“You won’t outwait me, Ren,” Hux tells him, leaning back on one hand; Kylo’s gaze flickers briefly to the key again before focusing on Hux’s face.

“What makes you say that?” he asks, voice still even.

“I still have my hand, even if I don’t have your mouth.”

Kylo reaches out with a gloved hand and takes Hux’s chin, gripping tight before he leans down and kisses him hard, bruising, forcing his tongue into Hux’s mouth and tempting him into a fight. Hux grabs at the front of Kylo’s cowl, barely focuses on the sweet tang of Kylo’s mouth when Kylo pulls back abruptly, smacking Hux’s hand aside as he stands tall again, looking down at Hux panting softly and pretending he’s immune to it.

“We’ll see,” Kylo says, the same way he delivers orders on the bridge, turns, and leaves.

\--

It’s a terrible waiting game.

Hux listens to his divisional commanders talk about Kylo roaming the _Finalizer_ , restless and quick-tempered, to the point that Phasma ends her weekly one-on-one with him by saying, “Perhaps you should give him your attention again, sir.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just a suggestion, before he destroys another ship,” she says before she returns to squadron practice, leaving Hux sitting back behind his desk and wondering if this is all worth it.

It’s easy enough for Hux to throw himself into his work, working late and eating dinner alone. With the Republic crippled, entire swathes of the galaxy are up for grabs for their fleet, and more planets mean more labor, more resources, more power. Some capitals can be invaded outright; some have to be infiltrated. He’s supposed to manage both, the armies, the intelligence, and now he has reports that Ren’s Knights will be meeting them when they rendezvous with the Lindwurm.

Occasionally Hux catches himself rubbing the spot over his chest where the key presses against his bare skin. 

Controlled unto himself, Snoke had said, and yet some nights Hux feels like this is his punishment, too.

 

One night, he closes his reports early and checks the internal communications for Kylo’s location: his cabin. Hux checks the time, checks tomorrows schedule, checks that the key is still at his chest, and then crosses the ship to Kylo’s quarters.

He stands outside the doors for what feels like an eternity--starts to think that maybe Kylo can outwait him--and then the door slides open.

Hux steps into the living room and sees Kylo sitting at his two-man table, robes on but helmet and gloves off. Machinery, tools, and solder equipment crowd together on the little table, wires and droid joints hanging off the sides. Hux thinks he’s seen some of those parts before, from some of Kylo’s earlier projects onboard.

“What’s this?” Hux asks, stepping over to the table to look over Kylo’s shoulder. The scent of oil and singed metal hangs in the air, stale with presumably hours of work.

“Distraction,” Kylo deadpans, not looking up and not stopping his soldering; the wires spark and hiss as they join together onto a board.

“Don’t you usually train in your free time? Meditate?”

“Already finished for the day.”

Hux slides his hand to the back of Kylo’s neck, rubbing firm and slow at the muscle. “And how do you feel?”

Kylo rolls his shoulder back. “Like I’ll break your hand if you keep tempting me.”

“Are you so impatient? Does Snoke teach you nothing when you leave for weeks at a time--” 

Kylo twists around in his seat and his hand darts up, fingers gripping hard around Hux’s groin and dragging a choked gasp out of him. Keeping his grip, Kylo is finally looking up at him, the bright white light overhead illuminating the faint gold ring around his brown eyes, and that’s the only thing Hux can see and focus between the immediate pressure and pain of the vice between his legs. 

“You have no idea what my training is,” Kylo growls; his fingers tighten further. “You can’t understand what I’ve fought for--”

Hux squeezes the back of Kylo’s neck, taking a breath before whispering, “...then tell me.”

Kylo curses quietly, the frustration and anger still simmering on the surface, and Hux wonders if he might be seriously injured before Kylo releases him. But then he surges up and out of his chair, grabbing Hux by the sides and pushing him relentlessly towards the little cot. “Why do you care,” he asks as the cot bumps into the back of Hux’s knees, “if I tell you anything?”

“Because you want to tell me,” Hux says, willing his voice not to waver as his hands scramble for purchase on Kylo’s shoulders, fisting on handfuls of smooth fabric, “and I can only deal with one of your frustrations at a time. You wouldn’t have mentioned it otherw--”

Kylo kisses him again, another one of those desperate kisses that reminds Hux of cold antechambers and hapless longing; it neatly skirts around his accusation, but Hux now relishes the intimacy, no matter how rough. He doesn’t even mind as Kylo pushes him back between breaths in their kisses, pressing down onto the hard mattress and moving over him--then he feels the prickle of the Force, too many things moving at once.

“You’re cheating,” Hux breathes as Kylo nips at the edge of his jaw, hands pressed down on his shoulders while finer powers pull at Hux’s jacket, unzipping and unfastening and revealing more skin for his teeth. 

“You asked me to tell you,” Kylo murmurs against Hux’s neck, and his actual hands catch the hem of Hux’s undershirt, pushing it up to scrunch around his chest. “But you said nothing against showing.”

Hux chuckles, his hand moving to the back of Kylo’s neck again, the other digging into the messy fabric of his cape, and he blames Kylo’s soft touch for how the muscles of his stomach twitch, the slight gasp. “Is this what he teaches you?”

“No.” Kylo’s hands brush low, and the fabric seems to pull away before his fingers. He bites Hux’s neck, hard, as his hand wraps around Hux’s cock, and the dual assault makes Hux gasp, gripping hard at Kylo’s hair.

“He doesn’t give you time to think,” Kylo whispers against his neck as his hand strokes, slow and firm. “Every day I have to train, to study, to endure. He hates weakness, you know.”

“Yes,” the word leaves Hux’s lips of its own accord, whether an agreement or an acknowledgement or something else, he doesn’t know, but Kylo’s hand is moving at the uneven pace he likes, and Kylo’s mouth worries that fresh mark at his neck, warm and sharp. 

“He knows everything.” A little more anger in Kylo’s voice, his hand stroking faster. “Where I misstep, where I am ignorant, what I need--”

Hux swallows hard, licks his lips. “This?” Kylo bites his neck again, more of that anger behind it and Hux wouldn’t be surprised if it bleeds, if that’s his blood that Kylo licks at.

“Yes--this,” he agrees, frustration covering that rage, his hand stilling briefly before dragging slow from base to tip on Hux’s cock. “How you use your tongue--how you use your hands on me--”

“You’re learning well enough,” Hux pants softly, hips straining up as Kylo’s strokes slow towards the tip, teasing.

He feels Kylo’s deep, rumbling laugh against his own chest, and the warmth spreading over his skin sinks into his blood, pressing against the tips of his fingers and toes. “You train me _well enough_ for your own purposes, Hux,” he murmurs, and his hand quickens again, dragging Hux closer and closer to the precipice. “I wonder--” a kiss at his neck, “if maybe--” a kiss at the edge of his jaw, then hot breath against his ear, “you’d like if I called you Master.” 

The title slams up against his thoughts and ignites him from the inside; he loves the way Kylo says that, loves that he says it while servicing him, and it’s just enough to drag him over the edge with a shout, fingers digging into the back of Kylo’s neck as he arches up against him. Kylo strokes him through his release, wrings those last shuddering gasps from him until he can’t move or think.

Hux lies there, breathing hard and trying to regain his senses, when he feels Kylo moving lower down his body. He looks down, getting up onto one elbow just in time to see Kylo bow his head and lick at the come on his stomach. If he wasn’t so exhausted, he’d be pulling Kylo back onto his cock--but for now, Hux bites his lip, stifling a groan as Kylo licks a wet trail down to his softening cock, briefly cleaning him before he pulls back and sits up. 

They look at each other in silence, Kylo’s gaze only lingering briefly on the glimmer of the chain at Hux’s neck before he searches Hux’s face. Then he looks down, and he starts to dress Hux again, tucking him back into his underwear, pulling at his trousers.

“I can dress myself,” Hux sighs, slowly pushing himself up--and Kylo kisses him again, his fingers hooked in the belt loops of Hux’s trousers. This kiss is slower, less urgent, with a familiar saltiness Kylo always seems to be eager to have him taste. When Kylo breaks the kiss, he doesn’t pull back, his forehead tilted against Hux’s, his eyes closed as he breathes softly.

“I fought for you,” he says, his voice tight. “I fought to have you...He said you were a distraction. That I was giving myself a wound I did not need.”

Hux takes a breath, quelling the knot in his stomach of annoyance and anxiety. “He was correct.”

“No,” Kylo snaps quietly, his hands jerking Hux’s hips a little closer to himself, so sudden that Hux has to reach a hand out to steady himself on Kylo’s shoulder. “He wasn’t.”

Hux is sure Kylo can feel this with him: the knowing uneasiness of questioning an absolute authority who seems omniscient if not omnipresent, who can probably reach deep into either of their memories and see this played out, who can hear the bitter contempt in Kylo’s voice and every heartbeat that passes where Hux does not contradict him. 

So what does Kylo do but dig deeper into the thoughtcrime and bury both of them. “I told him that you were a privilege I had earned. That I could be better, stronger in your company. He said that I was losing control of my power by focusing on you.” 

Hux doesn’t want to hear the end of this tale, but he still says, “And?”

Kylo exhales a breath that sounds almost like a laugh, quiet relief, a little madness - and his hands move up, fingers brushing along Hux’s sides. “And I proved him wrong, and now I am here--so why are you…” 

“We needed to focus. I moved first.” Hux says, his hand brushing against the edge of Kylo’s jaw, but now his thoughts are turning over with the speed of fear and lethal curiosity: how did he prove Snoke wrong, was it a battle, was it a test, what did Snoke say - impossible questions that Kylo will probably never tell him. Another time, maybe Hux will ask, maybe he’ll mention how all of this is to benefit Kylo’s control because Snoke still thinks Kylo is losing grasp on his power, but for now he wants a warm bed and tolerable company. “Come stay with me tonight. Bring your droid project if you must.”

“I’d sooner make you scream again.”

“Not if you would like a full set of rooms for your Knights when they arrive.” Hux slips off the cot to his feet, pulling his shirt down and fixing his jacket. “Are you coming with me, or not?”

Kylo gets to his feet, too, his hand resting briefly at the small of Hux’s back. “Let’s go.”

 

As they walk towards his quarters, close but not touching in case someone comes around the corner, Hux wonders if he truly know the extent of the games they’re playing; are they games anymore?

\--

Four Knights arrive on the Finalizer, each in a separate ship from a different corner of the galaxy, and Hux accommodates each one of their specific requests. For ease, he clusters them in one part of the officer cabins, but still on a different floor than either Kylo’s quarters or his own. Kylo may be their master, but they are not single-mindedly devoted to him like Hux or Kylo are to Snoke; they follow power, and Hux would rather keep them at arm’s length when he sleeps.

He hosts dinner with him, invites them to his strategic meetings to join the discussions between him and Kylo. They’re mysterious in the way that Kylo is to those who don’t see behind his mask or his professional front, but they also take more of Kylo’s attention - orders and discussions and private little jokes that annoys Hux--until he remembers what he has, dangling on a chain from around his neck.

 

They both agree to get a full night’s rest before the invasion plan starts, and yet neither of them want to go to sleep, even when they’re both in bed, the lights off but the room filled with the blue-white glow of hyperspace.

Kylo’s heartbeat steady against his ear, Hux sweeps his hand across Kylo’s stomach, feeling the strong muscles beneath his palm. Kylo breathes steady, the touch not enough to break his shallow meditation. Since the Knights arrived, Kylo has engaged in this more and more often, and Hux welcomes the opportunity to just look at and feel him like this, calm and still and--for the night--just his. The only way he knows Kylo isn’t asleep is by the slow stroke of Kylo’s fingers against his back, barely more than a small twitch of his fingers just above Hux’s spine.

“I suppose I should take this off before tomorrow,” Hux says as his hand creeps low, brushing over the ring at the base of Kylo’s cock. Kylo stirs; his hand presses, palm flat, against Hux’s back. “We’ll be out of communication while you infiltrate the--”

“Leave it.”

Hux lifts his head from Kylo’s chest to look the other man in the face; dark eyes look back at him, and Kylo face is so passive and reserved that it chills Hux to the core. He doesn’t ask if Kylo is sure; his calm is certainty enough. Instead, Hux pushes himself up and takes a slow simmering kiss from Kylo, focusing on the warmth of his mouth and the clean, mint scent of his aftershave, fresh from the bath.

“Bring me the planet,” Hux whispers against Kylo’s cheek, “and we’ll see about this.”

\--  
\--

After the invasion and the coup and the rest of the First Order troops stream in, Kylo sweeps the capital and takes a handful of prisoners that capture his attention. He spends all night interrogating them: they’re all Force sensitive, but untrained, and not half as powerful as that scavenger girl. Their minds peel apart like pages of book until Kylo leaves each one of them sobbing in the chair.

It still exhausts him. The dark side taxes the body, Snoke had said and Sidious’ had oft repeated in his writings, and sometimes Kylo believes it, when he feels the pressure behind his eyes and the hollow fatigue in his chest.

He strips out of his robes, his armor, and his boots before sliding beneath the duvet on his cot, barely having a moment to think about what he should report to Snoke before he falls asleep -

\- dreams of a cold spring beneath an obsidian fortress, of rough stone digging into his knees, of sobbing and shouting as the shadows creep into his mind, building sabers and daggers with blue, bright blue light - 

And wakes with a soft moan, his entire body too-warm and pressed back against another. 

His hips cant into the hand fisted around his cock, feeling that rough, bare skin and nothing else, and he shudders as the hot tightness coils low beneath his navel. Kylo curls his fingers in his pillowcase and the duvet, desperate for something to hold onto but useless for changing the pace of the firm strokes along his cock. He writhes, every little movement uninhibited by the daze of half-sleep, until one leg hooks over his and another hand curls into his hair, pulling his head back, and the immobilization drives him mad.

Lips press against the back of his shoulder, hot breath against his skin, and that hand twists around his cock just right, thumbnail dragging under the head, and Kylo comes with a dry sob that wracks his entire body, straining against every hold. That hand continues to stroke him through his release, keeping him high until the sensation trips from pleasing to overwhelming, and Kylo gasps between strained curses and tries not to beg, his entire body shaking, tears streaking from the corners of his eyes.

The body behind him shifts. There’s a kiss on the side of his neck, on the edge of his jaw with the tip of a hot tongue licking a tear from his cheek.

“Good morning,” Hux whispers to his ear.


End file.
